polkadot

My Dad joined in the 70s because he thought it might be fun social thing, went to one meeting, and now won't admit to anyone outside the family that he was a member.

I don't think I would ever, because, as someone here said, who wants to hang around with a group whose whole point is that they're smarter to everyone else. And it freaks me out that at least a few people use it for dating purposes: "we're both of superior intellegence, let's combine our 'superior' genes to have a genius child."

Also, isn't is fallacious to claim that your membership is definitely the top 2% of the population if you're automatically admitting people on the basis of standardized tests?

joespecial

Mensa is not selective. Top 2% translates to 1/50 people. Considering the tens of thousands of people you encounter in daily life, that's a lot of people. It's not like scoring 98th percentile on the LSAT, where the entire body test-takers sample only an upper slice of the general population.

That is true, and not only that, they will take any score on a standardized test that gets you in. They don't average like law schools, so if you get a 149, 151, and a 163 -- welcome to MENSA! (With that in mind, it is not even top 2%, probably more like top 3-5%.)

I thought about joining but it just is not selective enough, and I am not smart enough to get into the truly interesting smartness clubs. Probably 50% of the people on LSD could get into MENSA, so why waste $94* when I can get in fights with highly opinionated people here for free?